An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.

August 19, 2009

Missing 1970 Shows

This follows the same format as my Missing 1969 list, but I admit I had more difficulty with this list. 1970 has a greater variety of recordings & problems than 1969 did. Lumping together incomplete SBDs, great AUDs, lousy AUDs, fragments, and missing shows all in one list looks a bit confusing, and is conceptually muddled. (The Port Chester tapes hardly belong on a "missing shows" list!)
The best solution would be to simply list every show, with a note - "incomplete", "AUD", "no recording", etc. But, frankly, deadlists already does that, and it would just be a lot of extra typing. This list simply singles out what we DON'T have in SBD, all in one convenient summary - so at a glance, we can see just how much is missing from 1970. AUD lovers like myself can silently overlook all the great recordings on this list; and SBD lovers can keep in mind the dozens of great SBDs we do have from 1970, though they're mainly invisible on this list.

In 1969, it's likely that many "lost" shows are actually in the Vault. In 1970, a few missing shows from the first half of the year may be in the Vault, but most of these shows (especially after June) are gone for good.

Deadlists was, of course, invaluable, and is often quoted here. Setlists.net is best avoided.
Once again, songs we don't have that are listed on Deadbase, mentioned in reviews, or remembered from missing shows are [in brackets], but these are often incomplete or mistaken. Most deadheads in 1970 definitely were not taking notes; nor were many of them lugging tapedecks to shows. Enough of them WERE taping, though, that 1970 actually doesn't have many more completely lost shows than 1969 did. But some of the ones that were lost look like real nail-biters.

1/24/70 Honolulu - (SBD) This is a short show - the middle reel is missing from the Vault, though the end-of-show Feedback>We Bid You Goodnight survives. Most likely Caution was played during the missing part.

1/30/70 New Orleans - (SBD) This is short for a complete show & Eaton lists another 35 minutes. If Eaton's timing is correct there is still a half hour of this show not circulating. (Most likely a concluding Lovelight is missing.)

2/5/70 Fillmore West - The first five songs are on a half-hour AUD tape; the SBD of the end of the show is only 45 minutes; so a big piece of the show is missing between the two segments.
[ China Cat > Rider ; possibly Cryptical > The Other One ]

2/7/70 Fillmore West - Incomplete AUD & chopped-up SBD. Compared with Friday's total of 115 minutes and Sunday's of 138, the 85 minutes of Saturday 2/7/70 preserved on tape seems to fall short by at least a half hour. Obviously we are missing several tunes from the end of this set.

2/8/70 Fillmore West - The AUD has the complete show. The SBD tape in circulation begins 3:42 before the end of Dark Star and runs for 33:04, cutting off 15:12 into Lovelight. (Smokestack Lightning was released on the Bear's Choice reissue CD, so the entire SBD is likely in the Vault.)

2/11/70 Fillmore East, early show - (SBD) Only the last 20 minutes of this show are in circulation on tape; presumably more songs preceded The Other One. The rest of the early show is known to be in the Vault - Black Peter was included in the "30 Days of Dead" downloads in 2012.

2/12/70 Ungano's, NYC - A notorious fake, as the 2/13/70 early set surfaced with this date; the Dead may have played here sometime, but no recording is known and this date was apparently cancelled. (See the comments here for the debate on whether this show occurred.)

2/20/70 Fort Worth - No recording.

2/21/70 San Antonio - No recording.
[ Lovelight ]

2/22/70 Houston - No recording.
[ Lovelight ]

3/7/70 Santa Monica - Incomplete AUD only.
[ Me & My Uncle encore ]

(3/8/70 Phoenix - (SBD) Most likely this is complete, but Deadlists notes: "Latvala reports that there are two reels in the vault labeled with this date; the second is blank; the contents of the first are listed here. Perhaps we are missing the rest of the concluding electric set, although this seems complete as listed." Probably very little is missing except for the end of Lovelight, which cuts off.)

3/20/70 Port Chester, early show - No recording. (The old Deadbase setlist for this show comes from the 6/24/70 early show.)

3/21/70 Port Chester, early & late shows - AUD only.

3/23/70 Dania - A ticket notes two shows, scheduled on the 22nd and 23rd, and a witness also remembers the Dead playing two nights. (It's possible our tape is misdated, but a show could have been rescheduled.)
[ Dark Star, St. Stephen, Sittin' on Top of the World, We Bid You Goodnight (per audience member) ]

4/9/70 Fillmore West - The AUD has most of the show. The 45-minute SBD contains Me & My Uncle through Uncle John.

4/10/70 Fillmore West - No recording. I believe complete SBDs were made of this whole Fillmore West run, but many reels have been lost.
[ Deadbase: (electric) Cold Rain And Snow; New Speedway Boogie; Mama Tried; China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider; Hard To Handle; Casey Jones; (acoustic) Friend Of The Devil; Deep Elem Blues; Candyman; Wake Up Little Susie > Black Peter; Uncle John's Band; (electric) It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World; Dancin In The Street; High Time; Alligator > Caution > And We Bid You Good Night ]

4/11/70 Fillmore West - Only the last half-hour of the SBD survives, picking up at the end of Not Fade Away. The rest is lost.
[ Deadbase: (electric) Cold Rain And Snow; I'm A King Bee; Beat It On Down The Line; Dire Wolf; It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World; (acoustic) Don't Ease Me In; New Speedway Boogie; Friend Of The Devil; Me And My Uncle; Deep Elem Blues; Candyman; Black Peter; Uncle John's Band; (electric) Dark Star > Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away > Lovelight ]

4/12/70 Fillmore West - The AUD has most of the show. The SBD contains Good Morning Little Schoolgirl and Cumberland through Feedback.

4/24/70 Denver - No recording. (The tape with this date is actually from the following day.)
[ Wake Up Little Susie (acoustic); Not Fade Away > Lovelight ]

4/25/70 Denver - Incomplete AUD only. The first electric set is missing. (Recent research indicates that our "4/24" recording is actually from the 4/25 show.)
[ Good Lovin' was played between the jam and Man's World. ]

5/3/70 Middletown - AUD only. One of the worst AUDs ever, and missing the start of the electric set. Several songs from the acoustic set circulate as "5/9/70," from a separate AUD.

5/7/70 Cambridge - AUD only.

5/8/70 Delhi - Partial AUD only. Charlie Miller reports that the rest of the show was taped over by the taper.

5/9/70 Worcester - No recording; the tape with this date is from 5/3/70.
[ One audience member recalls Black Peter, Monkey & the Engineer, and El Paso (or another Weir country song) in the acoustic set, and Cold Jordan with the New Riders. The show ended with Feedback. ]

5/10/70 Atlanta - The Dead's equipment was delayed, so they played with the Allman Brothers' gear - probably no recording was made.
[ Hard to Handle ; The Other One ; Mama Tried ; Dark Star w/ Duane Allman; Mountain Jam & Will the Circle Be Unbroken w/ Allman Brothers ]

5/16/70 Philadelphia - Partial AUD only of the start of the set; shut down by Sam Cutler.
[ Minglewood Blues ; Lovelight ]

(5/17/70 Fairfield - No recording. Recent research on Lost Live Dead indicates that this show was probably canceled.)

[5/21/70 San Rafael - No recording. This date is listed in deadlists, and they suggest that "reportedly Janis Joplin performed Lovelight with the Dead." However, the Dead were not on the bill for this show - a Hell's Angels Party with Big Brother and Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band - and I haven't seen any evidence they were actually there.]

6/4/70 Fillmore West - Most of the electric set (Casey Jones through Saint Stephen) is only available in AUD, though I presume the full SBD is in the vault since Lemieux has played the acoustic set on the Taper's Section.

6/5/70 Fillmore West - I include this show just to mention that the SBD has many bad cuts, but the AUD is complete.

6/21/70 Berkeley - Partial AUD only. Lost Live Dead reports that the show was pretty short, and our tape may not be missing much.

6/24/70 Port Chester, early & late shows - AUD only.

6/27 - 7/4/70 Canada - Some video & SBD snippets have appeared from this tour, but it's unclear how much more survives. Most of these shows should be regarded as missing - more information here.
6/27/70 CNE Stadium, Toronto - Nothing available; the recordings were apparently lost. [Lovelight]
6/27-28/70 Coronation Park, Toronto - Two free shows; nothing available. Probably not recorded.
7/1/70 Winnipeg Stadium - Only two songs have been seen. The full show may possibly be in the Vault, but this hasn't been confirmed. (The Vault tapes are misdated.) [Alligator, possibly]
7/4/70 McMahon Stadium, Calgary - Four acoustic songs and six electric songs are available; the full show is likely in the Vault. [Lemieux reports that an Attics of My Life was played.]

7/8/70 Edwardsville - No recording.
[ Good Lovin' ]

7/9/70 Fillmore East - Only a couple AUD songs survive, according to Deadlists. Presumably the whole show was recorded, but the rest was taped over or lost.
[ Deadbase: (acoustic) Silver Threads & Golden Needles; Cumberland Blues; Dire Wolf; Swing Low Sweet Chariot; (electric) Easy Wind; Casey Jones; Not Fade Away > Good Lovin'; Viola Lee Blues; Morning Dew; Sittin' On Top Of The World; Uncle John's Band ]
(All but one of these electric-set songs were played on our "7/11" tape, which makes this electric setlist dubious. Deadlists suggests that tapes of Friend of the Devil & Easy Wind from this show may exist, but they're not on the Archive so this can't be confirmed. An audience member vaguely recalls an acoustic Dire Wolf & Uncle John's Band, Casey Jones, Dark Star & Morning Dew from the 7/9 show, but this is uncertain. One reviewer says an acoustic set from this run included Silver Threads & Uncle John's Band, which may have been this night or 7/10.)

7/10/70 Fillmore East - AUD only, electric set. (The acoustic set is missing.)

7/11/70 Fillmore East - AUD only.

7/12/70 Fillmore East - AUD only.

7/16/70 San Rafael - The first-set SBD is incomplete; but a second electric set has surfaced. Bear's last 1970 recording.
[ Lovelight; Me And My Uncle; Cold Rain & Snow to start first set ]

7/27-28/70 Matrix, San Francisco - The Hartbeats were advertised, but it is uncertain whether our "7/30/70 Matrix" tape comes from these shows. See here for a discussion.

8/5/70 Golden Hall, San Diego - No known recording. In fact, I don't know of any evidence that this show took place, and I doubt there was a show here. (We do have an SBD tape of an acoustic show with this date, but I believe it is from an unknown small club show, possibly a July show at the Matrix, and not from San Diego.)

9/17/70 Fillmore East - AUD only. The electric set is incomplete; probably this was preceded by at least a few more electric tunes. The tape cuts off in the intro of Uncle John's Band, which most likely ended the set.

10/5/70 Winterland - Possible SBD, not circulating. Deadlists: "David Lemieux confirms that there is no SBD of this show in the vault." However, Dancing appeared on the 2/4/70 Download Series. Hard to Handle, Candyman, and Me & My Uncle from this show have also circulated along with Dancing, misdated "12/17/70" & "12/23/70". (Details here.) It is uncertain whether more songs from this show survive misdated in the Vault, but it seems likely.
[ Hard to Handle, Candyman, Me & My Uncle; Casey Jones; Good Lovin'; Dancing In The Street; Turn On Your Lovelight ]

10/18/70 Minneapolis, two shows - No recording.
[ (early show) Casey Jones; Me & My Uncle; Morning Dew; Mama Tried; Cumberland Blues; Good Lovin' ]
(Audience members on setlists.net recall Cold Rain & Snow and Good Lovin' from the first show, and China Cat, The Other One, Easy Wind, Alligator>Caution, Uncle John's Band (acoustic encore) from the second show. One person on dead.net says there was no Anthem material like the Other One or Alligator in the second show, but adds, "Pig Pen did King Bee, Easy Wind, and ended with Lovelight. I remember a lot of Working Man's and American Beauty [songs], China Cat, and Dancin' In The Streets. The encore was Uncle John's Band a cappella except for Jerry's acoustic Martin.")

11/10/70 Island Park - No recording. (The AUD tape with this date is a fake: the NFA is from 9/20/70, the Other One from 2/23/71.)

11/11/70 Brooklyn - AUD only.

11/12/70 Brooklyn - No recording.
A partial five-song Marty Weinberg audience tape has surfaced which is thought to come from this Rock Palace run, but the date is unknown.
[ Lovelight ; St. Stephen ; It's A Man's World (per a setlists.net witness) ]
[ Hard To Handle; Truckin'; New Minglewood Blues; China Cat Sunflower
> I Know You Rider; Sugar Magnolia; New Orleans; Cumberland
Blues; Brokedown Palace; Not Fade Away. (Per Deadbase: this setlist may
come from one of the other nights of this run. Deadbase claims that this setlist "is from a tape that circulated in the 1970s but does not seem to be available now.") ]

11/22/70 Edison - No recording. (One audience member says the Dead played the Rolling Stones' song 'Connection,' though more likely it was played by NRPS - see here.)
[ Hard to Handle ; New Speedway Boogie ; Easy Wind ]

11/23/70 Anderson Theater, NYC - No recording. (The old SBD tape with this date is now known to be 11/16/70.)
[ Dancing in the Street; Around & Around; Me & Bobby McGee; Midnight Hour; Casey Jones; Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away > Lovelight; encore: Uncle John's Band. (Setlist combined from a newspaper review and a setlists.net report.) ]

42 comments:

11/10/70 - This fake date apparently comes from a Marty Weinberg compilation reel - the Not Fade Away is from his 9/20/70 AUD, and the Other One is from 2/23/71. It seems Weinberg did not tape the New York shows after 11/8/70....our loss.

David Lemieux on what survives from the Festival Express tour: "I think six songs by the Dead were filmed. Two were in the movie [Don't Ease Me In & New Speedway]. Two were in the bonus disc [Hard to Handle & Easy Wind], and there were two that didn't make the cut. I did recently hear the audio tapes from Winnipeg and Calgary and they were pretty good. It's basically two full shows, maybe an hour & a quarter each... I know there was a good China>Rider and a good Lovelight [probably the ones he's put on the Taper's Section]. Typical 1970 material: some sloppy stuff, some out of tune stuff, but also some incredibly interesting Pigpen stuff. There's a good Attics of My Life, too."

There's not much information about 9/25/70. That certainly looks like a dream setlist, but I wouldn't trust it, as it's only listed on the unreliable setlists.net. Presumably that list stemmed from an older edition of Deadbase; but the deadbase site now only lists Casey Jones, Easy Wind, and Lovelight.

Although a bunch of reviewers on dead.net apparently attended this show, they remember little. Deadlists says: "Bob Swanson attended this show. He remembers two sets, the first from NRPS with Jerry on pedal steel, the second from the electric Dead. From the Dead's set he remembers a drumming interlude and the Lovelight."

This site has an examination of the 8/17/70 setlist: http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/01/gd-august-17-1970-fillmore-west-san.html

It's more complete than what I listed here. Two reviewers (Michael Lydon from Rolling Stone and Ed McLanahan from Playboy) were apparently there that night, and they agree on the first 4 songs of the electric set. (At which point Lydon had enough and left!)

It's true, all those songs were also played on 8/18/70, and our reviewers may actually be talking about the next night. But what's more likely - that two reviewers would independently pick out 4 songs, scattered through a set, and each say that those 4 (in the same order) started the set, without mentioning other songs like the Other One or Attics? Or that the Dead simply repeated some songs? I'm uncertain, myself.(Usually the Dead did not repeat themselves quite that much two nights running. And it seems odd that NFA would be the fourth song in the set; but our tape of 7/11/70 also has it as the fourth electric song...)

The main reviewer (McLanahan) sadly has a very fuzzy account, possibly merging shows together - he places Truckin' in the electric set, which as far as I know didn't happen until October '70. He also says the show ended with Uncle John, Casey Jones>Lovelight. On 8/18 we have Casey Jones>Uncle John, and no Lovelight.

So we're left with a little puzzle. But assuming he's somewhat reliable, this is what we've concluded for 8/17:

Anyway, other dates here need more investigation as well; but keep in mind that any songs I listed in brackets may be inaccurate, and should be taken as tentative.

(I'm also suspicious of our phantom setlist from the 7/9/70 electric set, which repeats quite a few songs from our 7/11/70 tape...but it's not quite the same.)

We're left with the hazy memories of a few witnesses, sometimes years later. And even when notes were taken on the spot by journalists, they can still be suspect... If, for instance, our two '8/17/70' reviewers were actually at 8/18, then you have to say they did a remarkably poor job of capturing the setlist!

Garcia, Lesh, Hart & Kreutzmann all participated in the sessions that yielded David Crosby's debut album IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER MY NAME and Paul Kantner's BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE. Some sources say that both LP's were recorded around the same time in 1970. Does anyone know when the actual sessions for these records took place?

I don't have too many specific dates, but the sessions for those albums went sporadically through late 1970 at Wally Heider's. BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE was recorded summer/fall (after AMERICAN BEAUTY, I think), and Crosby's IICORMN was roughly Nov '70 - Jan '71 (and released in Feb '71). The circulating PERRO sessions we have are mostly from Jan '71, just jamming around after both albums were finished, although there are a number of Nov/Dec-1970 outtakes from IICORMN as well.

So basically, the Crosby/Garcia "David & the Dorks" shows of mid-Dec 1970 were done at the same time they were finishing IICORMN in the studio.I don't know of any place that lists complete PERRO session dates from the studio logs, which would be useful to know.

We have most of the dates for the Crosby LP from subsequent box sets and things (I don't know about BATE):8/4/70: Tamalpais High, Song With No Words (backing tracks, vocals added later)8/23/70: Music Is Love9/8/70: Cowboy Movie9/18/70: I'd Swear There Was Somebody Here10/30/70: What Are Their Names (backing track; vocals added later—possibly 11/23/70)11/04/70: Laughing

Addendum: Not that there is at least one conflict between these specific dates and the Dead's own touring schedule. Garcia and Lesh couldn't have been laying down the instrumental track for What Are Their Names on October 30, 1970 while simultaneously playing two gigs 3,000 miles away at SUNY Stony Brook the same night. So it's possible that some of these dates represent later mixing or overdub sessions, or maybe the 11/23/70 date is actually the right one for the WATN instrumental performance, not the later overdubbed vocal chorus. In general, though, it looks like the Crosby LP sessions stretched from August to November of 1970—slightly predating "David & The Dorks"—with the album coming out in February '71.

Thanks for the dates! JGMF (a couple comments below) has Blows Against the Empire sessions in July-August 1970, so some sessions must have run concurrently with American Beauty. (Both albums were released in November '70.) I'd thought Crosby's album didn't start recording til later in the fall, so it's a little surprising to see how much it overlaps with the other two albums as well. (Or for that matter, that it took four months to record!)Paul Kantner's later description sums it up: "Wally Heider's had three studios, which any number of us would be working in at the same time. I'd be making Blows Against The Empire in one studio, Garcia would be playing something with the Dead down in D, Crosby would be up in C doing vocal overdubs. As in making movies, there's a lot of 'hurry up and wait' time while they're setting up this or that. So we would just wander into each other's studios, listen for a while, and say, 'I could add something to that. Give me a mike.'"

Stephen Barncard said in an interview with Gans, "Mixing [American Beauty] was all done in the afternoon. I was doing the mix of American Beauty at the same time I was working nights with Crosby [on his album]. So I would get in about 11:00...and then I would do six hours mixing with the Grateful Dead. Then, at 6:00 pm, I would take a break...and at 7:00, or whenever David felt like coming in, he would show up... I never ever knew what he was going to do any night. There was no plan." (This Is All A Dream, p.165)

I went into the details in my post on 12/17/70 (in October '10) - there was also a bit of discussion on the deadlists discussion board a while ago (under "10/5/70 Winterland"). In short, there was no Dead show on 12/17/70; I believe we only have one reel circulating from 12/23/70 (from the end of the show); and other songs attributed to that date are actually from the October '70 Winterland shows. It's pretty tricky, really... At any rate, Charlie Miller has the full reels for 12/23/70 (and 10/5/70, it seems), so I hope someday he'll release them and it will be straightened out.

I was waiting til the tape emerged to confirm the exact setlist....the taper forgot to mention the St Stephen when he first gave the setlist (giving rise to much speculation), and perhaps there are other errors as well. Plus we don't know yet what songs might be missing or have big cuts...

Fortunately, he's sent his tape to Charlie Miller and we should be seeing this show in circulation at some point!

If the tape is even reasonably listenable, and reasonably complete, that 10/17/70 Cleveland show is going to be one humdinger of a doozy of a major show in 1970. "The Other One" AND "Dark Star" AND "Lovelight" and an early NFA > GDTRFB > NFA sandwich...plus who knows what the "Good Lovin'" is going to be like?

One guy was looking for a tape of 10/17/70 on the Archive some years ago and said this show "was a real stunner... I was at the show, and if the music was half as good as my memories of it, it was outstanding."

The setlist is certainly tantalizing - it looks like a high-energy set. This was the Dead's first Cleveland show, and in a new city they may have been out to impress. A Dark Star & an Other One in the same show is pretty rare (it happened again on 11/5/70). And after an NFA>Lovelight finale, the audience must have been begging for more! The guy above said, "I thought I was dancing on the ceiling." The taper (Jeff Linton) wrote, "In spite of the Bob and Jerry songs, the Dark Star, the Other One etc, it was very much, without a doubt, Pigpen's band. What a BIG FAT SOUND they had!"

I hope the tape is both listenable & complete - mono cassette recorders from those days had a hard time coping with the Dead's loud volume. Our audience tapes from late 1970 are a mixed bag, some of them pretty dire - this one could be a horror like 5/8/70, 7/12/70, or 10/11/70... And I do hope some huge chunk of Dark Star isn't lost in a tapeflip!

It's funny that you mentioned how rare "Dark Star" and "The Other One" were together in the same show. Just one or two years before, it was rather commonplace to hear them together (1968-69).

It's incredible how the GD changed so much in just a couple of years. Changes in songs, changes in length of songs, changes in arrangement and instrumentation. Perhaps an essay detailing the changes from 1966-72 will should be written.

"Perhaps an essay should be written...." Ha ha, good one! Maybe SOMEONE can write it...

Actually, in the Taping Compendium there are intro essays to each year that do a really good job of detailing the Dead's changes. I tend to focus more on the little details! Anyway, I'm kind of booked up for the next few months with the essays I'd like to write...

An additional 10/17/70 update from Charlie Miller: "The first tape was jammed. It ended up breaking at a point where it had been broken before and fixed with tape. I re-fixed it and put it into a new shell. Truckin cuts and comes back in during TOO. They go back into the "he had to die" part of TIFTOO, but I don't know if they did the first part of TIFTOO or went into TOO from Truckin'. Compared to other auds from 1970, this one is pretty good."

It's been asked whether this could be the earliest Truckin>Other One. With a tapecut at the crucial point, we can't be definitive, but I think they stopped after Truckin and started the Cryptical suite. From late 1970, I don't think there are any instances of Truckin>Other One>Cryptical. So this would indicate missing music of at least several minutes in the tapeflip.

The 5/9/70 "SBD" has been revealed to actually come from the 5/3/70 acoustic set; so 5/9/70 is now completely missing.

Also, an excellent, complete AUD of 6/4/70 has just come out (& will be up on the Archive soon). So, while part of the electric-set SBD is still tucked away in the Vault, we can finally hear the whole show on a great-sounding AUD.

I believe deadbase had their 8/23 and 8/24/71 setlists mixed up (and had a few mistakes in the setlists as well). Part of 8/24 was released on DP35, and part of 8/23 on a Road Trips, but neither show in full. Until Keith's "houseboat" tapes were discovered, 8/24/71 was a mystery and 8/7/71 was completely unknown.

[Loser through Truckin', and everything after Brokedown, are missing on the circulating AUD tape. Unfortunately, the complete 8/23/71 SBD doesn't seem likely to ever circulate.]

And this is the released part of 8/24/71 (according to Lemieux, "all that was salvageable") - Uncle John's Band, Playing In The Band, Loser, Hurts Me Too, Cumberland Blues, Empty Pages, BIODTL, Brown Eyed Women, St Stephen > Not Fade Away > GDTRFB > NFA, Me and Bobby McGee, Big Boss Man, Brokedown Palace, Good Lovin' (The rest of the setlist is not known for sure, but probably includes some of the songs on the "8/23/71" deadbase setlist.)

The Empty Pages that's on the 8/23/71 AUD tape is actually from the 8/24 show - that is, it's the same one that's on the DP35 SBD - so that's kind of a mystery. I believe there used to be an AUD tape of 8/24/71 that has since been lost. See these comments: http://archive.org/post/390556/8-23-71-update

In the last few years I have come to appreciate 1970 in a way I hadn't throughout my 39 year history of listening to the band.In looking through that very long list of missing shows I was wondering if there has been any information regarding some of those lost shows since you posted this essay in August 2009.I'm aware of the batch of returned reels that Lemieux received,but he has remained very tight lipped on what was returned.

This post has been updated. Many corrections were made, and a lot more setlist information has been added.

A couple years ago, many of Bear's missing reels from 1969-70 were returned to the Vault. Lemieux reported that most of these were not full shows, but stray reels from shows that we had partially complete. Most of them are probably from late '69 - 2/2/70 was completed and released; we think the first set of 2/11/70 is also now complete in the Vault. My guess is, if any more early '70 reels were included, they would probably just be from the February Fillmore West shows - Bear did not go on tour with the band after that. It would be miraculous, though, if more of the April Fillmore West reels would appear (or any of the lost April-May shows that may have been taped by Bob Matthews).

Looking through audience reports of 1970, it's clear a lot more audience tapes were made than ever got circulated.

For instance, one person wrote of 5/9/70 Worcester: "A friend recorded onto a portable cassette recorder - but would not want to brag about the sound quality... The Dead were loud - cassette audio was overloaded and really awful... I do have some of it on reel to reel - made from the original cassette - but the oxide was flaking pretty badly last time it was out of the box."

Someone else wrote of 11/23/70 Anderson Theater on dead.net: "I still have the cassette recording I made of this show. Even though it's prolly unlistenable I still can't make myself toss it. I had front row seats and this nice Hell's Angel guy helped me record the show. The tape deck sat on the stage so you can imagine how it sounded."

Someone else wrote of 10/18/70 Minneapolis on setlists.net: "My friend Bill couldn't get up and dance because he had a cassette tape recorder taped to his back with the microphone wire running down his sleeve to the mike at his wrist. The Guthrie Theatre did not allow tape recorders. The tape is long lost. And I don't remember the songs."

Tapes like these probably sounded as awful as 5/8/70 (for example) - one reason they never surfaced - but they would at least give us some idea of how the show went & what was played. But audience tapes can still appear sometimes - for instance the 10/17/70 Cleveland recording appeared out of the blue recently - and an audience tape of the 2/4/69 Omaha show is known to survive (made by the 4/15/69 taper). So there's still a chance some of these lost shows might be heard again, in some form.

A commenter on the Lost Live Dead site went to the 11/22/70 Middlesex College, NJ show and suggests that it was NRPS, not the Dead, who did 'Connection.' He was a Pigpen fan and recalls Hard to Handle, New Speedway Boogie, and Easy Wind from the show.

"It was Pigpen who was the standout. People that saw him in the later years do not realize that he was the MAIN MAN then! He was the only one with any stage presence/charisma...he had the best voice by far, and he seemed to be the leader at that time. The energy level doubled when he went to the mike." http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/03/november-22-1970-middlesex-county.html?showComment=1436218971818#c5268941680529471512

I have an old tape. The Club 8-29-1970. Not sure which set.Dark Star--Attics of my Life--Dark Star--Sugar Magnolia--St Stephen. China Cat Sunflower / I Know You RiderA friend gave it to me in the early 1980's.

A Variety review of either November 13 or 14, 1970, at the 46th Street Rock Palace, says the Dead did Me & Bobby McGee (the earliest known version), Lovelight ("ignited the audience"), and "lots of new material." http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/08/november-11-14-1970-46th-street-rock.html

A new review of 11/12/70 at setlists.net is very detailed: "It was a rainy night and not many people showed up, maybe 500 in all. The band experienced technical problems and the show started late, 9 or maybe 9:15. [Shows were scheduled for 8.] We expected to see the acoustic Dead open but the New Riders...opened the show and played a rousing set. The changeover took place and the Dead finally arrived on stage. They were introduced by Allison Steele, the Nightbird, and the show started. They were awful. Mercifully, after two or three songs they stopped. Weir came to the mike and said. "I broke a few strings, it's going to take a while for me to replace them and tune up. So, relax and we'll be back." [Then there was a long tuning break, waiting for Pigpen to come back onstage...] Starting from eleven with one break they played until four am. It was the best show I'd ever seen by anyone, bar none. Some of the songs: a great Lovelight, St. Stephen, and a show stopping It's a Man's World."http://www.setlists.net/?show_id=2356

The new Deadbase 50 asserts for 11/12/70 that "Deadbase's setlist of this show is from a tape that circulated in the 1970s but does not seem to be available now." Hopefully proof of this will emerge at some point. I'm not sure if this is an actual lost tape or a false memory.

Jim Powell suggests, "It's possible that an obscure audience tape of such a show once existed and its list got transcribed but a copy didn't make it into contemporary circulation as far as we know. Tapes as crude as 11/11/70 induce only us rare maniacs to listen to them, let alone copy them... On the other hand DeadBase has always been vague and unforthcoming about documentation and that doesn't inspire trust."

It appears there was a second show at Pirate's World, Dania, FL in March 1970. The date is unknown, but most logically it would be March 23. One witness on dead.net recalls, "the GD played two nights in a row at Pirates World that tour. I went the first night, and my brother and his college friends went the second night." Another attendee remembers Dark Star, St Stephen, Sittin' on Top of the World, and a show-closing We Bid You Good Night: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2015/04/march-24-1970-pirates-world-dania-fl.html?showComment=1448505673614#c7847285154193390911 I presume he was at the "lost" show.

An attendee of the 2/21/70 San Antonio show has also surfaced - he tried to tape the show, but his cassette recorder malfunctioned in Quicksilver's set, so he couldn't tape the Dead (who came on last). He remembers Lovelight being played, but didn't recognize a lot of the songs though he had all their albums. http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/09/grateful-dead-tour-itinerary-february.html

The upcoming Dave's Picks release of 1/24/70 doesn't include the lost reel, unfortunately, but does include a fragment of Feedback>We Bid You Goodnight from the end of the show. Lemieux speculates that an Alligator>Caution was in the missing reel - a sad loss.

Since the 11/10/70 Action House tape was shown to be a fake from other dates, I've long suspected the same was true of the "11/9/70" tape. After some investigation, it turned out to be fake as well: Attics of My Life, Mama Tried - 9/20/70 (from a no-longer-circulating audience tape) Morning Dew, Deep Elem Blues - 12/28/70

New Minglewood Blues and Walkin' the Dog are from an unknown lost show (or shows). No way to tell what the date might be, but at least this tape has a couple songs from a missing show that someone used to have....sigh....